Tuesday, November 19, 2013

When their words don’t mean what you think they mean — which is most of the time — this guide to speaking Republican comes in handy! — Photo collage by Elisabeth Parker for Addicting Info, with apologies to the “Complete Idiot’s Guide” series. Photo of boy with gun from the Huffington Post.

How can you fight back against conservatives and their backward policies when nothing they say ever makes any sense whatsoever? When their words never seem to mean what you think they mean — which is most of the time — this guide to speaking Republican comes in handy. After all, as the famous Chinese general, military strategist, and philosopher Sun Tzu famously wrote in his book, “The Art of War,” “So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.”

Here are just a few of the many rave reviews for our “Complete Idiot’s Guide To Speaking Republican.”

“This helpful guide to speaking Republican really comes in handy – I wish I’d read it back in 2008, because my whole term would’ve turned out differently.” – President Barack Obama.

“Dang! No wonder I can never understand a word they’re saying!” – James Carville, Democratic strategist.

“Great book — hugely helpful. Now, when did you last take a Wall Street bank to trial?” – Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

“I’ve forged a career and company based on the idea that anyone can learn to speak any language … but until I read this guide to speaking Republican, nothing they said ever made any sense to me.” – Eugene Stoltzfus, linguist and Rosetta Stone founder.

Read for yourself to discover what Republicans are really saying the next time you hear one of their bizarre phrases on Fox News.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Speaking Republican

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9-11: Justification for torture and preemptive warfare abroad; and for domestic racial profiling and invasive security precautions at airports.

420: Another step down the slippery slope of drug legalization from California, the land of fruits and nuts.

Anchor Babies: Children whelped out by pregnant illegal immigrants who sneak across the border in droves to steal citizenship and free medical care for their brown demon-spawn, who will grow up and vote Democratic.

Bible: The infallible word of God, who said everything He wanted to say to a bunch of bearded misogynist warlords in flowing robes thousands of years ago, then sent His son Jesus Christ to take it all back, and hasn’t been heard from since. Which is why we need right-wing zealots to tell us what God really meant. For example, it’s still okay to hate gays, but we don’t get to stone women to death for being harlots … yet (see God, Jesus Christ).

Bible-Based: A belief system that makes selective use of biblical texts to deny climate change, evolution, marriage equality, and equality for women.

Big Government: All government functions that go beyond invading other countries and putting people of color in prison.

Business: Everything that’s good about the United States of America. Unlike “Big Government,” businesses are extremely efficient and cost-conscious due to decades of skimming billions off the top to enrich their top brass and shareholders (see Corporations).

China: A backward country with no minimum wage, safety and environmental regulations, civil rights, or workers’ rights … which the United States should start imitating as soon as possible. Not really Communist any more (see Business Friendly).

Christian: An adherent to a religion named after Jesus Christ. Not to be confused with those who follow Jesus Christ’s teachings of love, tolerance, and caring for the less fortunate (see God, Jesus Christ).

Class Warfare: Working people asking for a living wage.

Climate Change: Global warming? What global warming?

Communism: A catch-all term for anything that promotes tolerance, fairness, transparency, or social justice. Has no relation to the actual theory and practice of communism.

Compassionate Conservatism: A term that makes a senselessly cruel and miserly philosophy seem palatable to people.

Energy Exploration: Drilling for oil or mining coal in wildlife reserves and national parks.

Enhanced Interrogation: Because we all know how people provide useful and accurate information when tortured.

Entitlements: Stuff you aren’t entitled to, even though you pay for them with your taxes or financial contributions: Like earned benefits, food, housing, education, healthcare, and other ridiculous luxuries taken for granted in all the other modernized and wealthy — and some not-so-wealthy — nations (see Pensions).

Family Values: In keeping with the values held by the authoritarian, dysfunctional families that warped conservatives’ minds to begin with. Not to be confused with values that actually support families.

Faith-Based Initiatives: Church-based charitable programs which would supposedly replace government-provided social programs … as long as recipients receive Jesus as their Savior, and as long as churchgoers keep on giving reliably.

Fetus: A cluster of cells cultishly worshipped by conservative Christians as representing the sanctity of life. Like cows in parts of India, fetuses must be treated with reverence and never harmed nor killed.

Fiscal Cliff: A non-existent precipice over which we’ll tumble if we don’t enact tax cuts for the wealthy and draconian austerity measures for the rest of us.

Founding Fathers: A bunch of guys who dressed like Tea Partiers, and loved Jesus and Freedom.

God: A mean, misogynistic, intolerant, war-mongering old white guy with flowing robes and unkempt facial hair who commanded us to hate women, gays, people of color, non-Christians, the poor, and pretty much everyone else except for men, boys, and fetuses (see Jesus Christ)

Israel: A nation ardently supported by conservative evangelicals, because the Rapture won’t happen until the Jews retake Jerusalem. After that, of course, Jews who don’t accept Jesus as their Savior will die horrible deaths and go to Hell. But we don’t need to tell them that.

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Jesus Christ: The son of God, who sacrificed himself in a brutal and drawn-out manner just to save the sorry, self-righteous, cheating, and hypocritical asses of jerks like Newt Gingrich and Mark Sanford (see Christians,God).

Job: Something people complaining about unemployment need to go out and get, whether or not any actually exist.

Job Creators: The 1% who stash money in off-shore tax havens instead of making investments that create jobs.

K-Street: Where disgraced GOP politicians eventually go to make a living.

Keystone Pipeline: Energy independence and jobs. Well, okay, so we won’t actually be using any of that oil and there won’t really be any jobs either … unless temporary contract work for cleaning up oil spills counts as a job.

School Choice: Vouchers for bible-based schools or home-schooling. Or the freedom to choose between crumbling and underfunded schools, inferior for-profit charter schools, or private schools you can’t afford (see Choice).